Over the past few years, I’ve had more and more conversations with women about GLP-1 medications.
Some women are initially thrilled because they’ve lost weight quickly. Some women lost weight and then realized they had lost a significant amount of muscle along with it.
I’ve talked to women who couldn’t eat enough to get the protein they needed. Women who were struggling with digestive issues. Women who were losing their hair. And women who told me they didn’t feel like themselves anymore.
Nearly all of them were trying to figure out what to do next.
Losing weight on a GLP-1, that’s one thing.
Keeping it off, and rebuilding what was lost along the way, is another.
After more than 20 years in the health industry, I don’t believe it’s my job to simply tell women what they should or shouldn’t do.
My job is to help you understand what’s happening in your body so you can make informed decisions.
If you’re considering a GLP-1, I want you to know this clearly before you start:
The number on the scale might go down, but that’s only a fraction of the story.
What happens to your muscle, your nutrition, your metabolism while on these medications? And, maybe most importantly, what happens when you stop taking them?
Those are the questions I want to explore here.
Eating Less Shouldn’t Be The Goal Anymore
For years and years, we were told to eat little to lose more. I think that’s why GLP-1s aren’t striking us as odd. We already believe something about weight loss that’s false: that if we want to lose weight, we just need to eat as little as possible.
GLP-1 medications are very effective at making you less hungary. They reduce appetite, slow stomach emptying, and improve insulin sensitivity.
But making it easier to eat less is only a temporary fix. Eating less doesn’t train your body to be healthier. And, in many cases, it does just the opposite.
Your body still needs protein, vitamins, minerals, and adequate calories. Whether you’re trying to lose pounds or not.
One woman recently told me she had lost 45 pounds using a GLP-1, but she had also lost a significant amount of muscle in her legs, arms, and glutes.
Looking back, she said that she would have been happy losing 35 pounds, but only if she could have kept her muscle.
She gets it. She discovered the first myth of GLP-1s…
Myth 1: Losing weight and becoming healthier are always the same thing.
Let me give you a ridiculous and fictional example.
A woman was close to her ideal body weight. Just a few pounds more, she thought.
So she called her doctor and told him that she wanted her thyroid and pancreas removed. Afterall, those organs weigh almost half a pound!
They scheduled the surgery. They removed her thyroid and pancreas.
As soon as she recovered, the woman stepped on the scale.
“One half pound lighter!” she exclaimed! “Now I’ve reached my goal weight!”
Do you see my point? We don’t want to just hit a lighter number on the scale at any cost. It matters what we lose.
The only part of our body that we should focus on losing is any excess body fat harming our health.
And that leads to my next question…
What Exactly Are You Losing?
A traditional scale can only tell you how many pounds your body weighs and whether those pounds are going up or down over time.
If you lose 30 pounds, the scale simply says you’ve lost 30 pounds. But it doesn’t tell you how much of that weight was fat loss and how much was muscle loss.
When we start using a GLP-1 and see the scale go down, we can start to believe the second myth…
Myth 2: When I lose weight on a GLP-1, I’m losing my body fat.
In reality, anytime we restrict calories, we’re at risk of losing lean muscle mass.
That’s why I care a lot about body composition.
Before starting a significant weight loss program, I want my clients to establish a baseline.
An InBody scan or DEXA scan can give you a better picture of your learn mass, skeletal muscle mass, and body fat.
Then you can check again as you lose weight.
I generally recommend every four to six weeks or every 10 pounds lost.
What we’re looking for is simple: Body fat should be going down. Muscle should stay the same or go up. At most, we should only see a 10% reduction in muscle mass. Any more than that, and we should stop what we’re doing immediately.
Why? Because…
The Fitness Game is About to Get Harder…
When we lose lean muscle mass, we’re taking a wrecking ball to our metabolism (our body’s ability to burn through calories instead of storing them as fat).
Once you lose lean muscle mass, rebuilding is much harder than maintaining it in the first place.
This is the main myth hoodwinking people who turn to a GLP-1.
Myth 3: Losing weight is the hard part. I’ll figure out the muscle rebuild later.
I love catching people right at the beginning of their journey with GLP-1s. That is before any metabolic damage is done.
Because if they’ve been taking a GLP-1 for some time and start to realize their muscle mass has drastically decreased, the next part of their health journey is going to be really, really hard.
Here’s the problem:
- GLP-1s decrease appetite. That’s fine. But as a result,
- You eat significantly less than your body needs, especially the protein your muscle mass needs to maintain it during weight loss.
- So, instead of losing just body fat, you lose pounds and pounds of your lean muscle mass too.
- Your metabolism depends on that lean muscle mass that you lost. Now, your body can’t burn nearly the amount of calories it used to. Its metabolism has changed.
- So, if you eat more than 700 or so calories a day, your body can’t burn through it. What’s left of your lean muscle mass can’t burn through more than that!
- The GLP-1 took care of the easy part (fat loss) but now you’re in a much harder place, with diminished lean muscle mass and a much slower metabolism.
- That means your body has been redesigned to store much more excess fat than before you started the GLP-1.
Losing excess body fat is faster and easier than rebuilding lean muscle mass. The body breaks down fat for energy much more readily than it builds new contractile muscle protein.
The fitness game just got a lot harder.
So, What Can You Do?
If you’re taking a GLP-1, the answer is not to be afraid of the medication. It’s to be intentional about how you live while you’re taking it.
And that’s the final myth I want you to chuck..
Myth 4: GLP-1s are metabolism-wreckers.
The medication isn’t directly wrecking your metabolism. It’s how you live while taking these medications that can create so much metabolic damage.
That means, there’s hope!
There are three things I consider non-negotiables while taking a GLP-1.
First, eat enough protein. Even when you aren’t hungry. Especially when you aren’t hungry.
GLP-1s mess with your body’s hunger cues. You can no longer rely on them to tell you if your body needs food or not. You’ll have to eat, even when the hunger cues are gone. And you’ll have to eat protein.
Start every meal with protein. Then, eat your fiber (vegetables, fruit, beans, and seeds).
Save your carbohydrates for last. If you get full before you finish, I would much rather see the carbs left on your plate than the protein and fiber your body needs more than ever.
If you can only eat a small amount, make those bites count. Give your body the protein, vitamins, minerals, and fiber it needs to recover and function well.
Second, strength train.
If you want to protect your muscle, you have to give your body a reason to keep it. Lift heavy. Progressively challenge yourself. Build strength. Think muscle, muscle, muscle. Fight for it.
Third, take care of the body you are asking to change.
Hydrate, eat whole, nutrient-dense foods.
Sleep is critical too. It supports muscle recovery, metabolic health, and hormonal regulation. Chronic sleep deprivation, on the other hand, harms your glucose regulation and body composition.
The goal of a GLP-1 should not simply be to make you smaller.
Lose the fat. Protect the muscle. Nourish the body.
That’s how to make a GLP-1 work for you and not against you.
Don’t mess around with a GLP-1. Don’t treat it like a quick fix. It’s not, and you’ll find out.
Let me help you and guide you while you try a GLP-1. If you’re considering using one of these medications for weight loss, please, don’t do it alone. Let’s use this tool carefully, intentionally, and with all the information you need to reach your goals.
Remember: My job is to help you understand what’s happening in your body so you can make informed decisions. Let me be your guide.
I’ll keep you on the path, guard you from pitfalls, and get you to your finish line.
